The plant is expected to be almost double the size of EWEC’s ‘Noor Abu Dhabi’ solar plant
The Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC), a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Power Corporation (ADPower), has received bids for its 2 GW Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Independent Power Producer (IPP) project, to be located in the Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi.
The project tender included the financing, construction, operation and maintenance of the solar plant, including installation of solar PV modules, inverters, connection to the transmission network and associated facilities.
Expected to cover an area of 20sqkm., the plant will be the world’s largest solar PV IPP project, and provide up to 110,000 households across the UAE with electricity. It will be almost double the size of EWEC’s approximately 1.2GW ‘Noor Abu Dhabi’ solar plant – the current largest operational single-project solar PV plant in the world, which commenced its commercial operation back in April 2019.
Once operational, the plant will lift Abu Dhabi’s solar power capacity to around 3.2 GW, further reducing the emirate’s CO2 emissions by more than 1.6mn metric tons per year, equal to removing around 330,000 cars from the road, thereby improving efficiency and driving sustainability, while catering for the growth in demand across the UAE.
“We continue to deliver on our ambitious sustainable generation program, and this new plant is integral to our strategic plan to deliver on the clean energy mix outlined by the UAE Energy Strategy 2050,” commented Othman Al Ali, CEO, EWEC.
EWEC’s team will now start the detailed technical evaluation followed by the commercial evaluation process to select the best proposal, with the award announcement expected to take place by Q1-2020.
